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2014-05-17 - To Thineself Be False
The date: May 20. The time: late. Dark. Sometime after sundown. Details available on request. Gathered together for a mission come two of the heroes found most irritating to anyone with a secret to keep: Oracle and The Question. Black Bat is along for the ride mostly and since this entire mess is her fault, she's also going to be involved. If planning is to be done, this is the time because the Bat and the Question are outside on the nearly cliche rooftop preparing for what's to be done. Gear is stowed and packed, whatever was determined to be needed in pockets and bat-belts. And put on your mask, Batbrain. That's what caused this in the first place. Oracle has her computer mic on, and talks into the headset. "Just so you know, I've sort of borrowed some military satellites to watch while you're outside. Once you get inside though, Cassandra, you'll need to look at anything that you want me to see, so that I can see it. At least until you put that piggyback system on one of the terminals so I can get access to the building's cameras. Annnnd could you get Q to wear the earpiece at least?" Oracle takes a sip of coffee as she trains the satellites down on the signal from the headsets. "Oh. And I'm monitoring the police band, just in case you're noisy." The Faceless Vigilante is a sucker. He really is. How he got tied into this is a matter he'll have to sort out another time. The fact of the matter is that he is in North Salem and he's not working solo. The Question happened to be in New York using the resources of the Dark Stars to research his own recent investigations centered in Westchester County. Those are now on hold for the much more intriguing issue that has brought him to this rooftop in North Salem. Q stands there on the rooftop, fedora's brim pulled low over his brow and gloved hands shoved into the deep pockets of the trenchcoat that he's got on today. Evenings are still pretty cool up in these parts, so the trench still has its utility this season. The Question asks, "So the Genesis of this fateful evening is due to your Forwardness? I guess I wear my mask because I am shy." Cassandra Cain has something on her eyes that she's wanted for a while: a hud. Heads up display allows her to actually see Oracle as well as Oracle seeing from her own eyes, and she's able to catch information on a much higher level than 'ugh, hit that and then go left'. Which makes her much more comfortable with the whole operation overall, though she's still responding with monosyllabic answers. "Yes." See? The building below is only two floors. Lots of glass windows with lights inside, but all tinted to a point where it's impossible to really see into them. There is a fence around the entire installation and only one main guard post to exit and enter. The plan requires a distinct lack of noise, so at least one passcard will be required to allow security access. There is, in fact, another guard post but it's a sealed box at the far side of the facility that would require explosives to open. The primary guard post, while more heavily guarded, is by far the easier one to bypass. Beyond that, the building itself has three entrances. The main entrance, and two side doors. One has a loading and unloading bay which is sealed at this time of day but all entrances could in fact be picked. All are also alarmed. Cassandra reaches over to Q and puts the earpiece in his ear before he's able to do anything about it. Whether he keeps it in or not is really a matter for complaint and persuasion. Oracle smiles, talking into the mic so both of them can hear her now. "Thank you. Unfortunately, this building is completely off the grid. Which alone makes it unusual. Nothing's -completely- off the grid. So soon as you find any sort of terminal. A Keypad, whatever. Use that little piece of electronics I gave you, stick it on, and give me .... maybe a minute. The Question has the earpiece forced onto him and surprisingly Cassandra was deft enough not to rupture his eardrum in the effort. Q slips a hand out of his pocket and adjusts the device, "... going to talk to Tot about getting some of these." He mutters. When O says what she needs to have happen, the Question remains silent. His attention less on the earpiece and the utterances being conveyed over it and more scoping out the challenge that lays before them. The Faceless Vigilante asks more to Cassandra than to O, "So. The front door?" It's difficult to tell if Q is being facetious or not. Cassandra listens, checks out the area, and shoulders her miniature wireless pack as she backs away from the Question. "Yes," she says when Oracle speaks, with her usual lack of responsiveness as she swings her feet off the front of the building and falls the two stories to the ground, landing behind a bush. She notes what the Question is going to do as he moves to do it, when he does so, and will respond appropriately but she realizes that his ability to read her plans is less thorough so she tries to vocalize them. "Getting card." Oracle moves the satellite a bit. "Cass. Never enter the front door when a back door will do. There's a guard in the back, looks like he's taking a smoke break. He probably has a card as well. Or at least a key into the rear." Cassandra slips up to the front fence guard post and then inside it, making effectively no noise at all. She almost casually picks the man's pocket of his security card, then when the man turns she's gone. She re-appears when he turns back to his post and replaces his stolen card with a dummy that Oracle had supplied earlier and goes out the door, over the guard post camera and into the compound, heading for the guard at the back entrance taking his smoke break. Total time: 15 seconds. One of two cards obtained, both of them should really have one since they won't be together for the whole mission. Oracle tilts her head. "Okay. Or that works too. Good work. Now to just get inside without any of the guards seeing and finding a terminal." She reaches over and takes the Batman plushie from her desk and flicks it idly. "How's no-face doing?" Cassandra helps Question past the guard post if he needs it, though that's not likely to be the case. She reaches around the corner and silences the smoking guard with a nerve pinch and lets his butt fall to the concrete, placing him to the ground as he slumps. She smiles at the image of Oracle doing what she's doing with the batman plushie and says, "Good," without surprise. The man has skills. She inspects the lock, which would lead into the building and where the two should theoretically split up; Question to access the computers and deal with guards, and Cassandra to find the way into the core. Now, how to deal with the alarm here? So far, beating feet to the guard post has been pretty run-of-the-mill. It's been all been a short burst and blur of movement and action for The Question. In seemingly no time at all, The Faceless Man was next to an unconscious guard. His body was moving but the Question's mind had turned inside as it often did. His actions and movements were given little thought over the mechinations of his mind. He's drawn out of his walking meditation and realizes he has palmed the unconscious guard's keycard. The card is held between his pointer and middle fingers and Q raises it up to just a few inches from his face. The focus of his gaze shifts from the keycard to the door that Cassandra has reached. The Question closes the gap between himself and Cassandra, shows her the keycard and mutters, "This will probably prove useful." Oracle waits for them to enter the building. "By the way, I hacked into the company that did the construction of the building and I have a blueprint of the building. Might not be entirely accurate though." She pulls up a screen of the blueprint, presses a few buttons, then puts it into a 3D hologram. "Plus it doesn't tell which rooms are which, but I'm assuming the shielded rooms are most likely to have the computer banks." Cassandra Cain checks the doorway again. She looks at the alarm. Then at Question, then at her HUD. It actually takes her a minute to figure out that the keycard is how you make the the door work without setting off the alarm. She rolls her eyes and swipes the card to open the door. "Yesss..." she says, feeling vaguely dumb today. She inspects the video of what she's likely to see inside and the directions she's being given, then nods to Q and opens the door and she's inside heading for her target areas. She spots any cameras inside the hallway, waving Q inside. Once the door is opened and ingress is available, The Question follows Cassandra into the building. Behind the pseudoderm mask the vigilante wears, curious eyes dart about when the room or corridor beyond the back entrence is revealed to him. He purses his lips beneath the mask and eventually looks towards Cassandra as she waves him in further. After progressing a few steps, his curiosity in the place wains and he gets back to focusing on what he's supposed to do in here. Cassandra Cain motions Vic down the hall to the right with two fingers, pointing him that way as she heads left. She slips through the blind point of a camera then through a doorway following the map on her screen that she's memorized already and isn't looking at anymore. She ghosts past a guard post and down a central hallway, waiting a moment for people to look away, and has to wait a bit longer in a secretary's cubicle as there's just no way past that junction without being seen by a group of cameras. "Problem," she reports. The Faceless Man follows directions real good, ask Professor Rodor. The Question heads through the corridor and goes in the direction that Cassandra pointed him in. This scenerio is not an unfamiliar one for the Faceless Man. The task is always the same but the backdrop Q finds himself in are always similar; Break into Building 'Y' and Find 'X'. The variables don't matter to him, the answer 'Z' is what the Vigilante is after. The Question steps briskly down the path Cassandra indicated. Doors along the corridor are opened and peeks are taken in an effort to uncover the location of a easy to access computer. After a couple of portals, the Question gets lucky. A lonely computer monitor illuminates an otherwise darkened office-space. The Question slips inside and braces something against the door to keep others from doing what he just did; Enter. Oracle says, "Okay. Stop. Go to the corner of that room. That's a hub. Stick it there and just wait a minute so I can access the network there." Cassandra Cain is hiding under a desk. Not the most interesting of locations, but she's small enough to pull it off. She scans the area for other ways in, spotting an air duct. Nah, too easy. She listens cautiously for guards or janitors or anyone else who's supposed to be in the building as she waits for a chance to move and ...she spots a way to get past the cameras. Drop ceiling. Won't hold weight. We'll see about that. In a corner of the room that the Question is in, voices can be heard. They're hard to hear at this point, but just interesting enough to draw attention. Of course, the Question curses inwardly once he steps away from the door that he's provided a makeshift barricade for. Why the cursing? The room he finds himself in is much more expansive than he had first thought after his peek through the cracked doorway. The Faceless Man's legs bend at the knees and he drops into a walking crouch as he hears voices that aren't the voices coming from his borrowed earpiece. A muffled grunt of annoyance is made by the intruder while he swiftly makes his way to the computer he thought was lonely. On his approach the Question slips the device from Oracle out of his pocket. The device is idly twirled around in his fingers while he makes his approach. The USB port is Q's prey and the device from O is Q's spear. The Question stabs the computer with the device and mutters, "There. Present task currently complete." Oracle smiles as one of her screens starts pulling up data - the device sending back streams of information, which Oracle puts through programs that she designed herself. Then send back to the satellite and down to the device.... And into the closed off computer system. Though it's not closed off anymore. "And.... got access to all the building's systems now." She pulls up an overlay of the different cameras, and the hologram gets some red dots moving around the building. "Okay. I also made a program to tie into the cameras to let me know where each of the guards are. Speaking of which... um.... hide." She says that since she sees 2 red dots about to head into the room where Question is. Voices. Interesting voices coming from next door, that the Question can easily lean against the wall and hear. One of the previously non-scannable areas isn't soundproofed, and Question will have to decide what to do. Stay and listen, or deal with Oracle's warning. "Mmm. Apple bran." "John's here to see you, sir." First voice again: Thank you Rachel. Okay, who is it?" New voice: "I did the search. No match." "What? The FULL Database, at Lang--" "Yes. The master genetic database. No match!" "That's...that's impossible." "I'm telling you guys, she doesn't exist. And look at these specs!" Cassandra is up the wall now, clinging to the ceiling. Sort of. She actually has a hand on one wall, a foot on the other wall of the corridor, and the other hand on the ceiling. Shouldn't be possible with someone her height but once Oracle gave her access she went up the wall like a gecko or a treemouse or something like that. She's moving along the wall, body straining to be able to reach and hold herself in that untenable position, and moving over the guards and camera positions to the far doorway that is her target. Cassandra arrives at the far doorway without alerting the guards and realizes she can't open the door without going on-camera, and looks pointedly at the camera she needs rerouted and points with a bare fingertip. When Oracle dictates to Question to hide, the Faceless Man does his best to follow that wonderful bit of advice. Q is already kneeling, but now he tries to actually obscure himself behind something. The desk that the computer calls home makes for a handy barrier to sight. But is it adaquate? The Question will never know. What he wants to know is what those voices are saying... and knowing that information clearly trumps his desire to remain unseen and potentially unharmed. The Faceless Man continues to kneel down, but moves in a way to maximize his obscurity but not be hidden. Oracle taps a few keys, and the camera that was blocking Cass's path suddenly turns the other way and stays pointed at the opposite wall. "There you go Cass. One second..." She turns on a voice modulator and ties into the guard's radio band system. "Need you to check the northern corner on floor three." A camera zooms in on the guards' name tags, "Zewicky and Chambers." At which point the guards in the room where Q is hiding .... just a few feet away from him... talk to each other "What do you think they need us up there for?" "Do we really get paid enough to ask those types of questions? Cmon... let's go." And the two guards leave the room and walk off to the third floor. The voices that the Question can hear are still droning on, unaware of their listener's plight: "Of course she exists. That's her right there." "Not what I meant. The blood sample shows seratonin levels off the charts, balances all wrong. Don't even ASK about her blood chemistry. Once we study that we can" "We can calm down, John. She's a metahuman, that's why." "No, she isn't. I ran it twice. "Are you kidding? Look at the tape, she's Bruce Lee on crack. You're sure she's clocked at metahuman speed?" "Well, superstrength, just under 2.6 human. Speed's up about 4.2 but her actual moves are human. It's her aggregate speed that's metahuman. Whatever you do, don't lose the remaining blood sample." As Cassandra moves down to the doorway and through it into the sealed area, she arrives at a vaulted room. She actually cracks her knuckles as she sets up the wireless device that Oracle gave her to let the woman access the inner files. Which are in this vaulted room. She starts in on the safecracking with expert coaching from the Oracular one. The Question remains kneeling and quiet. As he kneels, he tightens the belt of his trench and lowers the brim of his fedora a bit more in an effort to remain obscured. Q slows his breathing, closes his eyes and just kneels there waiting for those individuals to pass on through. Thankfully, those two individuals didn't think twice about the object he used to barricade the door. Maybe they think it a long past office prank from hours ago? When Q hears the latch of the door secure, his eyes snap open and his head turns back towards the voices. He attempts to creep in that direction in a vain attempt to hear more. Oracle listens in on the conversation through the security cameras. "Cass.... That info rumor I had was more accurate than we thought. I think they have a sample of your blood. You're going to need to get it and destroy it in addition to wiping the computer samples and the videotapes on you. I think they want to use what was done to you as a prototype soldier." Oracle ties into Question's headset. "Okay Q, I got rid of those guards. Make your way to the computer banks while Cass gets to the vault for the blood and video samples. You have about a 5 minute corridor of time, and I put all the cameras on a digital loop." Cassandra Cain follows the directions given to her by the diagrams and schematics that Oracle has access to. Which makes it much, much easier to crack a door when you can call up the instructions online...and Oracle can do that. So after about a minute, the door swings open without a creak. Well taken care of, this one, and it reveals a very large room with nobody inside. Filing cabinets are few and rare here; this is more a storage location for videotapes and strange paraphernalia. There are test tubes and beakers, all stoppered. Four different types of refrigerator, two photocopiers without paper and a table with piles of paperwork strewn over it as if somebody actually works here. The computer, now that Oracle has access, easily directs her to the locations of the Cassandra-related material but also lets her know that this room is fireproof and bombproof, but has oxygen. Which means that a fire in here would be devastating, and contained. There are sprinklers in the roof to ward off such an event. The Question's room is less high-tech. He does, in fact, hear something more about how the human body can do many things that are amazing, but not all at once, and how the speakers are amazed about how their subject is able to mentally do these things, but it's interrupted by a loud overhead speaker making a public announcement. "ATTENTIONKKZZZZTTTT... JANITORIAL STAFF TO THE FRONT AND WHOEVER LOCKED THE LOUNGE WASHROOM STALL IS FIREDTTTTTTTKS" and it fades out leaving a ringing in the ears. "Aw, you owe me ten bucks, John." "It was under a minute, he had his coffee before he went to lunch." "Seriously?" The conversation is a bit less enlightening for a while. The Question quips quietly to himself, "What can you not do, Oracle? Superman himself is unable to rid a locale of mean and evil men from a room miles away." The Faceless man is slow to rise into a standing position. O wants Q at computer banks? Well, by golly, the Faceless man has few skills but at least being at a place is numbered among them. The current problem is to locate them. The Question is on the move now and palms a beefy-looking stapler as he starts off in a direction that's away from his original position. The one computer he found will not do, he doesn't want to screw up O's interface into it that he impaled its USB port with. The individuals who were talking on the other side of the room about money owed and java. There's got to be a computer or three in that area. He'd swear that there was an ambiant glow of a backlit screen... that is if he cared to swear about it. Oracle types some stuff into the computer, then moves an icon. "And now the fire suppression system in that room is off, Cass." She responds to Q. "Superman's been mystified by bluetooth also. Even with his Kryptonian computer banks." She looks at her computer system. It has some kryptonian tech that she backward engineered as well for the crystal storage. She says, "Cass gave you the flash drive right? Because after you're done hacking into the computer, I gave Cass a flash drive to give to you. It has my own personal virus on it. Should wipe every hard drive in the place that's connected to their intranet. If there's any computer that isnt though, you'll need to upload the virus to that directly. It'll have a pretty .... fun... effect when you do it." Cassandra Cain is looking around the room that she's in. Directed to the refrigerator, she upends a vial of normal-seeming blood onto the floor, ending a threat that she didn't even know existed. A video that's desperately needed to be gone, smashed and the bits held to a speaker. And all the refrigerators opened, the doors pulled off their hinges. Flammable bits all over the place, and the utility belt offers a simple tool. a lighter. And Cassandra closes the door behind her with an air of finality as the flames flicker inside. "Done." She heads for the way out. Hub City's Protector humphs at the response he gets from Oracle, "To be fair; It isn't difficult to mystify The Man of Steel." A pause is given as he makes his way across the room to the row of computers that he spied moments ago. The Question mutters, "I am not inclined to upload this to every computer. I'm just being honest." Q sidles up to the computer, takes the flash drive out of whichever pocket he decided to temporarily store it. It's attached to the computer and, if prompted, Q will manipulate the keyboard with gloved fingers in order to do the dirty deed. Q notes outloud, "Flash-drive in place." "Slow," says Cassandra from roughly one meter behind the Question's position as he does his work. She's bypassed the cameras as if they were nothing, having learned the patterns on the way in, and bypassed the door by some means not shown on camera. She absolutely meant to be startling, and would have known if he was aware of her, but she also wants to test this new accomplice's reactions. So she does, a black but recognizable figure in a black mask with that ragged and unused sounding voice that's been heard on the comlink. Hands on her hips, she almost taps her toe in mock impatience. Oracle presses a button. And almost every computer in the room starts making a low humming noise. "Okay, first it wipes all the data and randomizes it. Little trick from the NSA." Then starts smoking. "Interesting thing about computers. If you start overclocking the processor while turning the fan and the power supply fan off on the CMOS it tends to burn out. That's a little trick of my own." The Question is the not startling kind. When Cassandra declares the Faceless Man slow, he taps a few more keys on the keyboard and rises up and away from it. A gloved hand raises to push the brim of his fedora up while he twists at the waist to regard Cassandra, "I move with alacrity only when the moment calls for it. You want speed, call the Fastest Man Alive. With me, you get what you get." When Oracle narrates what she is doing or what she has put into motion, Q pauses to listen. He mutters an acknowledgement to her and looks down to Cassandra. He asks, "You've done what needed to be done? Let's make dust out of here." Cassandra Cain turns with a nod of acnowledgement in Question's direction, tapping her earphone to signal Oracle. She heads for the side door, the cameras in the building starting to fail as Oracle's virus takes a deathgrip on the building's systems. Literally a deathgrip, every system in the installation is in its death throes including the doors, which seem to all be electronically controllable and are now sealed shut. Very few people are aware of it yet, but the lights are going down in a wave from the central power supply and the red emergency lighting highlights the team as they do what they're doing. In Cassandra's case it's walking to the exit and work, because she has more to do tonight. One guard turns the corner to look into the vaulted area and starts to shout about fire, but there's really very little that can be done about it. The Question shoves his hands into the pockets of his trench, one hand finding the stapler he had palmed ealier. He squeezes it idly, clicking and clacking it as he moves to follow Cassandra to the side door. As he walks, his head swivels watchfully to remain apraised of the happenings around them... especially now with the lighting failing and doors being disagreeable. Q seems to think outloud, "Hope I can catch the bus back to the city. I've still got work to do in The City." Cassandra Cain kicks open the door to the outside and vanishes over the wall in a flowing motion that denies gravity. She doesn't hesitate at all to see if the Question can keep up, absolutely certain of his abilities and showing it by...doing nothing at all to help him. She can hear celphones calling the police, fire departments, all too late to save anything of real value. Yes, so sad that the fire suppression systems are offline. And the Black Bat vanishes into the night. The Faceless Man follows Cassandra out of the building and he spares a glance over his shoulder at the failing lights and the unseen confusion potentially befalling those deeper in the building. Q dismisses the thought, returns his gaze ahead of him because it is forward that he will be going. Q lost track of Cassandra, but that doesn't matter. The goals have been achieved and further questions have been revealed that require answers. Oh, and a stapler has been acquired. As The Question makes his retreat from the building, a stray thought passes through his mind; Hope that no one is unusually attached to this stapler and comes looking for it. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- In a poorly lit room with many computer screens, far away since distance matters not at all on the infranet, a download finishes. "Twinning of download complete," a recognizable voice reports. And behind him, in the darkness, a cheshire smile as an asian face is lit by the green text in the darkness. Then the light comes on suddenly as the donuts arrive and the moment is ruined, the hacker screaming out as his night vision is shot for five whole minutes. Lady Shiva rolls her eyes, taking a crueller, and says, "Right" as she heads for her next job. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---